PonoMusic, the high-resolution music service founded by rock star Neil Young, made headlines earlier this year when its Kickstarter campaign successfully raised $6.2 million, making it the third most successful project in Kickstarter history at that time. Now, just four months after that campaign ended, Young's company is crowdfunding again.

Pono announced last week that new and existing backers could invest in the company again, this time through a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdfunder.com. Unlike with the earlier campaign, these backers would receive equity in Pono — something Kickstarter does not offer — in return for an investment of at least $5,000.

The Pono Crowdfunder campaign has already passed its goal of raising $4 million at a pre-money valuation of $50 million. As of publication, Pono had raised $5.6 million, nearing its Kickstarter total.

"We identified within Pono that we needed to raise more money in order to achieve what we wanted to achieve," Rick Cohen, chief operating officer at Pono, told Mashable in an interview Monday. "We really had no idea what the demand might be [before Kickstarter]... What we wanted to do was be able to follow up the 15,000 units we had placed with Kickstarter participants with more units and we wanted to be in time to do that this year before the holiday season."

In early April, then Pono CEO John Hamm told Mashable that the startup planned to do an equity financing round in May or June. But the company decided in favor of what Cohen describes as the "almost unprecedented" back-to-back crowdfunding campaigns in part because Pono and Young did not want to cede too much control to traditional investors.

"We explored more traditional financing alternatives and we found those to be more expensive and more constricting," Cohen says. "Neil has a very pure and distinct mission and he doesn’t want this mission to be driven by any kind of need for instant profits or a quick appreciation in the investment."

In the months since the Kickstarter campaign ended, Pono has been working to develop and test its portable music player, begun gathering content from the three major record labels it has partnered with and recently launched an online store where customers can pre-order Pono players.

Last month, Pono announced that it had reshuffled its top ranks. Young replaced Hamm as the company's CEO and Cohen, who had previously been an outside general counsel to Pono and longtime confidant to Young, took over as chief operating officer. Some on Kickstarter raised concerns about the personnel change.

"This looks disturbingly unprofessional," one backer wrote on the Kickstarter page. "I am afraid that I have chosen unwisely and spent rent money on a company that may not deliver on its promise."

Cohen brushed aside those concerns in our interview. "The company hasn't missed a beat," he said. "Neil had for all intents and purposes been acting as CEO... I think it's fair to say that Neil at this stage of the company's development is perfectly able to fill the role of CEO."

Unlike the traditional CEO, however, Young will have to juggle the chief executive position with his other responsibilities as a musician. "I think Pono is going to take a lot of time and a lot of dedication," Young told Mashable in an earlier interview. "At the same time, I continue to play my concerts and write songs and they don't seem to get in each other's way." Sure enough, when we first reached out to a rep for Young after the CEO change was announced, we were told he was away on tour in Europe.

On this point, Cohen is adamant. He says Young has been and continues to be a hands on executive despite his other obligations and offered no shortage of anecdotes to prove his point. It was Young, he says, who "guided the decision making" for Pono's packaging and Young who took the lead on Pono's earbuds.

"Very few days go by when Neil is not actively involved in the company’s business. In fact, on Sunday, not only was Neil on the phone with me for an hour, he was also emailing people responsible for engineering and for infrastructure construction and all different aspects of the business," Cohen says. "I would like him to go through the hierarchy a little better," he added with a chuckle. "He’s a very hands-on guy."

Having said all of that, Cohen says it's possible Young may become "a non-executive chairman" in the future as the company evolves. Whatever changes come to his title, Cohen says Young's fundamental position at the company will remain the same: "He is the keeper of the vision."

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.